March 29, 2009
— Open Blog Correction/Addition: Due to my lack of proofreading I didn't note the location of the second-to-last "good wall" in the gallery below. It's in North Korea. Thanks to "Deuce Geary" for bringing that to my attention.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the city government has decided to engage in some public works projects to beautify the place. As you know, Brazil is a nation run by brilliant socialist/economist/el presidente Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvamade, a nation so rich in resources that its people can afford five words in their names. Silvy (as heÂ’s popularly known by no one except me) is expected to be awarded this yearÂ’s Nobel Prize in economics due to his groundbreaking treatise on the correlation and causality between blue eyes and white skin and their effects on economic cycles. ItÂ’s expected to be a close contest between he and Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe. But enough about that.
” RIO DE JANEIRO, March 28 (Reuters) - The government of Rio de Janeiro is building concrete walls to prevent sprawling slums from spreading farther into the picturesque hills of this world-famous tourist destination, an official said on Saturday. Construction has begun in two favelas, or shantytowns, in the southern districts of Rio de Janeiro, a government spokeswoman told Reuters. One of the two is Morro Dona Marta, which police occupied in November to control crime and violence caused mostly by rival drug gangs. Officials say the wall is to protect the remaining native forest but critics fear the move could be seen as discriminatory and become a blemish symbolizing Brazil's deep divisions between rich and poor. "There is no discrimination. On the contrary, we are building houses for them elsewhere and improving their lives," Tania Lazzoli, spokeswoman for the secretary of public works at the state government, told Reuters.
” By year-end the Rio de Janeiro state government wants to build almost 7 miles (11 km) of walls to contain 19 communities. It will spend 40 million reais ($17.6 million) and have to relocate 550 houses, Lazzoli said.”
Our leaders have simply failed to see the difference between a “good wall” and a “bad wall.” You see, a good wall is one that keeps people in. A bad wall is one that keeps people out, according to President Silvy and other like-minded progressive thinkers. There you have it. Walls can be a good thing. It’s just that the U.S. and Israel haven’t applied the proper narrative. It’s all altruistic you see…helping the environment AND the people at the same time. Win-win. Below the fold is a gallery of walls so that you can compare and contrast.
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— Gabriel Malor The president will present the rest of his Ailing Big Two plan tomorrow, which White House aides are touting as tough on everyone involved. The first condition for future funds, however, appears to be GM CEO Rick Wagoner's resignation.
The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government's behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.General Motors issued a vague statement Sunday night that did not officially confirm Wagoner's departure.
"We are anticipating an announcement soon from the Administration regarding the restructuring of the U.S. auto industry. We continue to work closely with members of the Task Force and it would not be appropriate for us to speculate on the content of any announcement," the company said.
The surprise announcement about the classically iconic American corporation is perhaps the most vivid sign yet of the tectonic change in the relationship between business and government in this era of subsidies and bailouts.
Hey, you want the taxpayer money ya gotta dance to the government's tune. Is this a smart thing to do to keep more of our money from being tossed into the endless craphole that is GM? Beats me.
Even were Wagoner to stay, he wouldn't be in charge of his own company. The Obama Administration is setting the conditions for restructuring; it will determine how things will go for the workers, retirees, bondholders, and shareholders, not Wagoner or his replacement.
There is also this observation from the Politico article:
Obama's move against Wagoner hearkens back to September 2008 when President Bush's Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, insisted that AIG CEO Robert Willumstad step down as part of an $85 billion bailout of the insurance giant. Paulson installed in his place Edward Liddy, a former Allstate executive. The AIG bailout has since grown to about $170 billion and Liddy has faced calls for his resignation in the wake of reports about hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of bonuses the firm agreed to pay to employees.
Who's the boss now?
Thanks to numerous commenters for pointing out the story.
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— Gabriel Malor Against Courtney Love, no less.
According to a libel claim lodged by [fashion designer Dawn] Simorangkir in Los Angeles Superior Court last Thursday, the widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has carried out "an obsessive and delusional crusade" of malicious libel against her on Twitter, adding insult on MySpace and other websites.The designer, who lives in Austin, Texas, also claims that numerous tweets posted by Love on Twitter accuse her of being a "nasty, lying, hosebag thief"; having "a history of dealing cocaine"; having "lost all custody of her child"; and, being guilty of "assault and burglary". The singer adds that the designer would be "hunted til your [sic] dead".
Twitter, the progress of human civilization right before our very eyes.
via meep...over Twitter.
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09:57 AM
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— Jack M. I'm posting this editorial because I have a soft spot not only for Maha-Rushie, but also for watching someone call out the readership of the LA Times as a bunch of girly-men with skulls full of mush.
I mean, check out the following blockquote. It is a thing of beauty, and something I wish I'd written:
By lifting some typically Rushian piece of outrageous hilarity completely out of context, the distortion gang knows full well it can get you to widen your eyes and open your mouth in the universal sign of Liberal Outrage. Your scrawny chest swelling with a warm sense of completely unearned righteousness, you will turn to your second spouse and say, "I'm not a liberal, I'm a moderate, and I'm tolerant of a wide range of differing views -- but this goes too far!"There is more untruthfulness in that statement than in a speech by President Obama. Even the commas are self-deceiving. You're not a moderate or you wouldn't be reading this newspaper. You're not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven't listened to Rush Limbaugh.
And for those LA TIMES readers from Rio Linda, here is a synopsis of the above paragraphs the author helpfully provides:
Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.
Sure, there will be some on the right who wring their hands about appealing to the "middle" with the softer, kinder language of the perpetually clueless. Much more fun, however, will be to watch the leftists to whom this broadside is aimed scurry about trying to prove, lest they be revealed to be hypocrites, that they actually have "Rush Creds" after all.
In any event a blast with both barrels is occasionally necessary to loosen the rust embedded in the system. I hereby nominate Andrew Klavan for this weeks "Slices Like a Hammer" award.
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09:47 AM
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— Dave in Texas Shocka, I know.
Sankei said in a separate dispatch from Washington that 15 personnel from the Iranian satellite and missile development company Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group are staying in North Korea at the invitation of the North Korean government.
It's awesome how helpful they are to each other, the North Koreans and the Iranians, with "man-made bad catastrophe thingys" or whatever the pussified expression is that the Obama administration came up with.
Axle of evil.
Posted by: Dave in Texas at
07:38 AM
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— Open Blog Shuttle mission STS-27 in December of 1988 began oddly and nearly ended in total disaster. The military mission to carry the first Lacrosse radar imaging satellite into orbit was at the time considered so top secret that during a pre flight press briefing the Atlantis crew members wore black face masks to conceal their identities. Such tongue in cheek melodrama would soon give way to real drama when more than 700 heat shield tiles became damaged during liftoff.
"I will never forget, we hung the (robot) arm over the right wing, we panned it to the (damage) location and took a look and I said to myself, 'we are going to die,'" -shuttle commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson.
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07:28 AM
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March 28, 2009
— Open Blog Things that need to be said now were said in 1957.
"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist."If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.
"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."
Read, or, re-read the whole thing here.
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— Open Blog Lost amidst todayÂ’s celebration of Urf Hour is the ongoing struggle to reign in the out-of-control and increasingly violent crime wave caused by traffickers in the deadly, highly-addictive chemical phosphate. If you thought meth was a problem, you ainÂ’t seen nuthinÂ’ yet. According to this article ”Dirt-Weary Spokane Turns to Bootleg Detergent.”
”SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.”
Gadzooks! There’s lots more about the root causes of this lawlessness below the fold, along with a clip from a law enforcement training video on how to combat these “soap-runners.”
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— Gabriel Malor I agree with John, this seems like it can't possibly be a true story:
During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.
Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.
Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.
After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”
Really? Really? She asked, "Who painted it?"
Forehead-smackingly embarrassing. Non-Catholics and even some Catholics who don't live in the southwest might not know the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But Clinton claimed to have been to the Basilica before. Has Clinton never wondered why half the cars in the southwest have little replicas or stickers of the image? Hell, I've got one on my car.
Ignorance like this demonstrates cringe-worthy lack of preparation from our number one representative to other countries. We'd be in better shape if she sat in her office and tried very hard not to insult anyone else. I suggest duct tape might do the trick.
Posted by: Gabriel Malor at
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— Jack M. I'm posting this story for
1) I can;
2) As an excuse to link the accompanying photo; and
3) Because as commenter "Long Island" points out, it is further proof that global warming is a hoax.
What can I say? I have some glass that needs to be cut. I wonder what the going rate is?
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02:52 PM
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